The Angel's Return
by Louise-Anne
Summary: The ballerina and the Phantom are intertwined. Now residing on Coney Island, Meg Giry and Erik Danton must face their pasts to create their futures, as ghosts haunt both. Light and dark, their souls are made of the same stuff. The return of an Angel may save or doom them both.
1. Chapter 1

**The Angel's Return**

Chapter 1

_Erik_.

I am not a man who is prone to fear, and yet there is no other name for the emotion that flooded me when I heard the howl echo through the Imaginarium'scorridors. It was a sound that hardly seemed human and jolted my weary steps into a run, down the last of the stairs and towards the stage. The backstage door was open, and I could see that the technical lights were on, illuminating the stage. I couldn't see anyone at first, but then the cry came again, and I looked up to the platform forty feet above the stage, where the trapeze artists began their routines. Meg Giry was crouched up there, her hands over her ears.

"Meg!"

Even as I called her name I was stripping off my coat and the jacket beneath, leaving them at the base of the ladder. I climbed as quickly as I could, and found Meg still crouched on the platform, rocking backwards and forwards with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. She looked as if the illness that had hospitalised her mother had already resulted in death. Her face was white under make-up that had been smeared by distress and exhaustion, and the front of her long skirt was tucked into the waistband. Slowly, she lowered her hands.

"Meg," I kept my voice as soft as possible, anxious not to alarm her. One false move from either of us could result in a forty-foot drop to the stage below. "What are you doing up here, Meg?"

She looked back at me, and her eyes glassy with pain and the drug that I had laced her tea with. It had been intended to calm her, to soothe her, not drive her to the brink like this.

"I was thinking," she said, and her voice sounded like a lost child's. "I was thinking about how people fall out of my life. Like leaves falling from a tree." My eyes flicked to the edge of the platform, and the drop below. "My father. Christine." Her breath came out in a long, shuddering sigh. "Benedict. And now Mother. Everyone I love. All leaving me. Who is going to be next? You?"

I lowered myself onto my haunches, not wanting to frighten the girl, but trying to edge closer.

"She's going to die, isn't she?"

"We all will, someday," I replied. "It is life's one certainty."

I did not know how else to answer her question. The aneurysm would one day rupture, and there was no way to predict when it would happen. I could not give Meg an idea of how much time she and her mother would have together, and the fact of that was a glowing line of anger in the pit of my stomach.

"Do you think it will hurt her, when the time comes? Do you think there will be pain?"

"I don't know, Meg." It was the truth. A helpless, bitter truth.

"I don't think Papa felt pain when he shot himself. The way everything flew apart, I don't think there can have been time for pain." She stood up, and I did the same, taking another step nearer. "Benedict felt pain. Maybe not for long, but he died in pain. Nobody should die in pain." She turned towards the auditorium which gaped darkly like an open maw in front of us, and I felt every muscle in my body tense. "Perhaps it would be quicker, kinder. It couldn't hurt, could it? Not to break your neck?"

She looked down and I heard my own breath hiss in through my teeth as I readied myself to spring forward and grab her around the waist, to drag her back onto the platform. Would she fight me? Could I fight gravity? But Meg sighed, and turned to face me. Did she intend to fall backwards so that she could not see the stage, could not see death, rushing towards her? I wanted to seize her, but knew that I had to be restrained, and slowly reached to take her hand in mine. Her fingers were cold, and I could not help gripping harder than was necessary.

"Come along, Meg," I kept my voice quiet, an invitation, not a command. "It's time to go home."

I drew her towards me, away from that treacherous edge, but the noise of my own heartbeat did not begin to fade until we were both back on the stage, and safe. For the moment, at least. Meg leant heavily against me, her blonde head almost lolling against my arm I guided her off the stage, pausing to turn off the technical lights.

"Do you have your keys?"

"Mmm."

In my own coat pocket was the ring of master keys to The Grand Circle, the apartment block I owned, which had been secured in my office safe at the Imaginarium. If I had thought to have a second copy in my own apartment, we would never have ended up back here. We would not have been up on that platform.

I looked down at Meg, and seriously considered simply picking her up in my arms and carrying her like I would a child. She was practically unconscious on her feet, but I did not think that she would welcome being swept off her feet in such a way, even if it was in her best interests.

_Thank God she hadn't jumped._

I led her out of the concert hall's stage door, to where the Hansom cab was still waiting for us, the driver smoking a cigarette. We could have walked the distance in ten minutes, if either of us had been up to it tonight.

I paid the driver when he dropped us at the entrance to The Grand Circle, and made sure to keep one hand under Meg's elbow as I unlocked the main door, then helped her up the silent staircase to her own apartment. It was the early hours of the morning, and the rest of my tenants would have gone to bed hours ago. Meg fumbled with her own keys to unlock her front door, and stumbled immediately through the dark parlour to the bedroom, directly opposite. I closed the door and followed, seeing Meg turn on the gaslight on the wall and then sink down onto the end of her bed. The bed was unmade, and yesterday's gown was bundled in the corner of the room. By the wardrobe, a collection of boots and shoes lay, and the vanity table was littered with bottles, tubes and jars. Makeup was not an unknown to me—one cannot spend so much time within the Arts and not be familiar with it—but why girls seemed to need so much of it was a mystery. Meg's fingers were fumbling with the strap of her high-heeled dancer's shoes, and I sighed and knelt to assist her.

"Let me help you."

"I can manage," she protested.

"Meg, just let me help."

I slid off her right shoe and saw with a jolt that her white stocking was reddened with blood.

"You're bleeding," I couldn't keep the alarm from my voice, and abandoned propriety to reach under Meg's skirt for her stocking top so that I could pull it off.

"What?" Meg looked down. "Erik, what are you doing?"

"You're bleeding." I repeated.

"Oh, that," she said wearily as I tugged at the stocking. "It's nothing."

"_This_ is nothing?"

Her foot was swollen, blistered and bleeding, the mark where the strap had dug in standing clearly against her white flesh. The two smallest toes were blackened with bruising.

"You must have been in pain, why didn't you say anything?" I couldn't help feeling angry with the girl. She shrugged, the gesture heavy with fatigue.

"I'm a dancer, Erik," she murmured. "This is normal for me. I doesn't hurt, not really. I have a salve."

"Where?" I demanded as I pulled off her other shoe and stocking.

"On the vanity table. The white jar, with the silver lid." She was slurring her words. "No—that's foundation. _That_ one. Thank you."

Meg took the jar from me, opened it and started to smooth the cream inside over her sore, blistered feet.

"Thank you for bringing me home, Erik," she said. "And for taking me to the hospital. Thank you for…" she hesitated as she looked up at me. "…for helping me in there and letting me stay. I honestly do appreciate it. I can look after myself now."

I sighed, reminding myself that however vulnerable she looked in this moment, she was not a child.

"Get some sleep, Meg." I told her. "Stay here tomorrow, don't worry about the shows. _Rest_."

She nodded. "Thank you, Erik. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Meg. Sleep well."

I locked the door with my master key when I left her apartment, and ascended the stairs quietly to my own, at the top of the building. The clock on my mantlepiece was chiming two when I opened the door, and I subsided into the nearest chair.

_What a night._

Antoinette Giry's collapse, the initial panic of summoning of the emergency services, the news of the aneurysm. As I leant forward to untie my shoelaces, I wished I could have done as Meg had, and escaped some of that uncertainty in sleep. She was annoyed about my sleight of hand in drugging her, I knew, but I couldn't have let her remain in that state, so tense that her whole body seemed to be vibrating slightly like a violin string. Her reaction had been truly disturbing. I had known that she was afraid of medical professionals, even the gentle giant Dr Gotreich, known that she had been afraid of them even since she had been a child. But I still had not anticipated just how strong the fear had built up inside her, a physical wall that stopped her moving. When she had stared at the entrance to Ben Rush Hospital, I had been shocked at the expression on her face. It was an expression I had seen before, of course, but never at the mere sight of a building. It was the terror of someone who knew that they were about to die.

I went to my own bed, knowing that there would be more to deal with tomorrow. Well, later today. I would have to talk to Helen Roylott in the morning about taking on the leading lady role in Meg's place for the time being. I knew, perhaps better than anyone, how important it was to have an understudy. Meg would understand. And Antoinette Giry would recover, given time and the right care. I could not help thinking of her, lying in the hospital bed, the white sheets seeming to leach all the colour from her face as she stared at me with eyes as dark as her raven hair.

"I looked after you," she whispered. "Promise me, that whatever happens now, you'll look after Meg. Promise me, Erik!"

I had leant over her and placed my hand on hers.

"I promise, Antoinette," I told her gravely. "I will look after your daughter."

I arrived at the Imaginarium a little later than usual the following morning, a Sunday, and almost collided with Irene Norbury, coming the other way along the backstage corridor with a cup of coffee from the staff's communal kitchen. I jerked back from her, since I was carrying a suit that my housekeeper Mrs Turner had pressed for me on Friday, but she stepped around me and the coffee did not spill. I wondered if she was used to people like me not noticing her quickly enough to her dwarfism. I let out the breath I had inhaled in anticipation of the spilled coffee.

"Good morning, Ms Norbury."

"Mr Danton," the small woman looked up at me anxiously. "How is Madame Giry? I did ask Meg but she was in a rush and didn't say much, apart from that she would be in hospital for a few days' more."

"Yes, I am afraid that she is quite unwell. The doctors have diagnosed her with an aneurysm, and we are not sure yet when she can come home." I frowned as I registered what Irene had just said. "Meg told you? When?"

"When she arrived, about ten minutes ago." She looked even more worried. "Was she not supposed to have said anything?"

I shook my head. "It is of no consequence. I did not realise Miss Giry was already here. I will give you further information on her mother's condition when I have it."

Irene nodded. "When you go to the hospital, please pass on our regards. We're all very worried about her."

"Of course."

Irene moved around me, and I continued along the corridor to Meg's dressing room, knocking firmly.

"Come in."

Meg was sitting at the vanity table in her corset and petticoat, already made-up and twisting her blonde curls into a bun on the top of her head. She caught my reflection in the mirror and a frown creased her brow.

"Oh. Hello."

It was not a cheerful greeting, I noted, as I closed the door behind me.

"I was not expecting you to be here, Meg."

"Oh? And why wouldn't I be?" There was a sting in her voice. "The public are still attending. The show must still be performed."

"Given the state of you last night, I had thought that you might obey me for once and _rest_." I clasped my hands behind my back. "Not to mention that your feet must be sore."

"My feet are fine," she said shortly, fixing her bun into place with aggressive stabs of the hairpins. "I told you, those shoes are nothing, it was because I was wearing them for such a long time. And I don't need any more rest."

"I beg to disagree, you're as white as a sheet."

"It's my choice," she snapped as she reached for the heavy stage make-up. "You seem to forget that I have been a ballet dancer for my entire life. I have danced on broken toes and I have danced with a fever. I am fine."

I moved to stand directly behind her, waiting silently until her reflected eyes met mine.

"What?"

"Meg, why are you angry with me?"

She twisted around in the chair to face me. "_Why_? Do you honestly not know?"

"I cannot imagine."

Meg sighed and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Erik… we don't have time to discuss it now. I want to go back to the hospital as soon as the afternoon shows are over, will you take me?"

"I should have told you last night; the Benjamin Rush Hospital are rather strict on their visiting hours. There are none on Sundays."

"Yes," she agreed. "You should have told me. This evening, then. Come down to my apartment and I'll cook you dinner." She looked up at me, her eyes hard and her jaw set. "We need to talk. Bring wine."

Sundays were shorter days for the staff of the Imaginarium. The concert hall, sideshows, bars and restaurants opened just before eleven o'clock in the morning and closed just after three o'clock in the afternoon, the concert hall showcasing only two shows running at ninety minutes each, rather than the usual four shows of three hours. Usually I would be roaming the concert hall, ensuring that everything was running smoothly and stepping in to assist where needed. Today, there would be no roaming. I had agreed some weeks ago to give Victor Hatherly a day of leave, and so had to take over his usual role as conductor of the orchestra. I usually only performed this task during rehearsals, drilling the musicians into some form of perfection. Then it was left to Hatherly to maintain that standard during the performances as I was otherwise engaged. Today, however, I changed into the white-tie suit I had brought with me in my office, ensuring that I looked at smart as possible. I would have my back to the audience but the performers would be watching me closely as I conducted, and I sighed, adjusting the fit of my mask.

The twelve musicians sat up a little straighter in their chairs when I joined them in the orchestra pit, a murmur of slight nervousness rippling through them, knowing that I would expect excellence. To their credit, they delivered it – I do not pay them half again what they could get elsewhere out of the goodness of my heart. I make my employees work for their pay.

I watched Meg from my place in the orchestra. The average patron would not have found fault in her performance, but I could see that she had lost her sparkle. Behind the theatrical smile, her eyes were glazed with worry and some of her dancing was a little out of time with the others. Under the makeup, her face was pale and her voice cracked on the highest note as tension tried to strangle her. I could not chide her for that. I was as worried as she.

Between shows I talked to Helen Roylott about taking over Meg's role for the final show the next day, so that we could visit the hospital, and answered the questions people put to me about Madame Giry's condition. It was frustrating to be so short of information to give them, and when I asked Dr. Gotreich if he knew anything of aneurisms between performances, he could only shake his head. It was not in the realm of a general practitioner like Gotreich. Meg did not join us in the green room, and when I passed her dressing room, the door was firmly closed. As she wanted, talk would have to wait until later.

I was not used to being summoned, but that evening, I selected a bottle of red wine and descended from my top-floor apartment to the first floor, knocking on Meg's front door.

"It's open, come in."

The aroma of roasting beef washed over me as I entered and my stomach rumbled in expectation. It was the first time I had been in Meg's apartment since I had confirmed her let of it, and I glanced around as I entered. Meg was not a tidy woman; there was an empty coffee cup and a book, splayed open with the pages down, on the little table where she ate her meals, the cushions on the sofa were disarranged, the piano open with sheet music on the stand, and the doorway to the bathroom was standing ajar. There was a multi-faceted glass star hanging from a thread at the window, which would catch the sunlight and send rainbows across the room, and on the mantlepiece a framed picture of Meg and her mother, taken the month before by the newspaper photographer. He had been there to photograph the Imaginiarium for a review, and I could not imagine how Meg had persuaded him into taking this picture of the mother and daughter.

Meg was in the kitchen area with her back to me, wearing an apron over a cream blouse and bottle-green skirt, her feet bare and I could see the bandages around her toes.

"Good evening," I prompted, removing my coat and hanging it on the back of the door.

"Is it?" She sounded a little flustered as she opened the oven door and took out the meat, turning towards me to put it on the countertop. "Oh, good, you did bring wine. Open it, will you? Glasses are in the cupboard to my left and the corkscrew is in the cutlery drawer to my right. I'll be with you in a moment."

With a slight raise of my eyebrows at a tone I considered more of a command than a request, I skirted her as she moved dishes in and out of the oven, reaching over her head for the wine glasses. She was no longer wearing makeup and without it looked pale, sickly almost, with dark shadows under her eyes and a trio of pimples across her left cheek. Grief had dragged a wasting hand over her, since the death of her fiancé, but over the last nine months or so she had been slowly improving, seeming happier. Antoinette's illness was like a fresh blow to newly-healed skin, and was bound of bruise before it healed. I did not know how to help her, or if it was even my place to try. I had named myself her guardian on the legal documents for ease of purpose, but Meg Giry was not merely an employee and never had been. I had delivered her at birth and that made her mine. I once read that a woman in the final stages of labour should birth the child unassisted, as that first contact binds two people together irreconcilably. But if I had done so in the case of Antoinette, both mother and daughter would have died. It is nonsense, anyway.

We moved around each other in the small kitchen, a _pas de deux_ of food and crockery as I took the opportunity to remove cutlery from the drawer as well as the corkscrew, so that I could set the table.

"Placemats?" I enquired.

"Bottom drawer." Meg was making gravy on the stove. I found them and took them to the table where I had already put down the glasses.

"Why are you reading _A Christmas Carol_ at the end of March?" I wondered aloud, flipping the book over and looking around for something to use as a bookmark.

"Because not even Charles Dickens is allowed to tell me when I can and cannot read a good book."

"Fair enough." I reached into the pocket of my coat and found a train ticket, marked her place in the book with it, and placed _A Christmas Carol_ on the arm of the sofa instead. I set the table and carried the empty cup over the sink as Meg began dishing up the meal. The cork popped from the bottle and I poured two glasses as she brought the plates over to the table. Once seated, I raised my own glass.

"To your mother's recovery."

"To _Maman._" Meg clinked her glass against mine, and took a deep swallow of the wine. We were almost finished with the meal when Meg said:

"I want to talk to you."

"You said," I nodded. "What about?"

"Last night." She refilled her wine glass and set it back on the table, but still held onto the stem and turned it, looking at the colour of the wine rather than at me. The silence hung in the air between us.

"Speak." I ordered. "What do you have to say to me about last night?"

She spoke to the wine. "What you did to me last night was appalling. And I want an apology."

I felt myself go cold, and then hot as anger sent the blood rushing to my masked face.

"What I _did to you_?" I repeated, my voice rising. "When I took you home last night, right to your very _bed_, you were _thanking me_!" I could not believe what I was hearing, the_ unappreciative brat_. "What the _devil_ do I have to _apologise_ to you about?!"

Her eyes lifted to mine.

"You drugged me." It was a flat statement. "Without my knowledge, without my consent. And it's not the first time, is it?"

I huffed my frustration. "I had no choice."

"Rubbish."

"You don't understand!" I put both hands flat on the table to prevent myself from squeezing the wine glass so hard that I broke it. "If you could have seen yourself! I didn't know if you were about to vomit or faint or both! And when I got you in there and we were waiting, you were shaking so badly you looked like you had hypothermia! I had to do _something_, you ungrateful wretch! I _know_ you are afraid of doctors, I know you have nightmares about hospitals, but—" I trailed off, and shook my head as I struggled to complete the sentence. "I couldn't just leave you like that."

There were two lines of red across Meg's cheekbones, but I could not tell if they were a result of anger or the wine, for when she spoke, her words were quiet.

"You should have _asked_ me."

I stared at her, and felt a spike of shock. I could have asked if she wanted something to soothe her. Maybe I should have, but it had never even occurred to me. I had seen the problem, and taken pains to remedy it in the quickest and most efficient manner possible. She continued:

"You seem to forget, Erik, that I am a human being with my own agency. I was in a quite a state, I know that. But if I had wanted something to calm me, I would have said so. Yes, I was terrified. But I wanted to be _conscious_. I wanted to be able to talk to Mother. In case—" she swallowed. "In case it was my last chance."

She looked away, as though trying to hide the tears that gathered. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

"Meg, it was not your last chance. Your mother will get well."

"_This_ time."

"Yes." I picked up my glass and sipped the wine. Meg was still staring at me, her expression a little stony.

"I'm still waiting for an apology."

"Are you?" I sighed. "Very well. You have my apologies for not seeking your consent."

"And I want you to promise that you'll never do that to me again."

"What, are you going to have me swear on the Bible next?"

She glared at me.

"Fine. I give you my word. Have I ever given you reason to doubt it?" I added as uncertainty flickered across her expression.

"No," she admitted, looking at the glass again. She dipped her fingertip into the wine and ran it around the rim of the glass so that it sang. I let the sound fill the room for a few seconds before reaching out, placing my hand on hers.

"Meg, I know how worried you are. I share that worry, believe me. You know how dear Antoinette is to me. As I told you last night, I will make sure she gets the best care she can. You must trust that the medical professionals know what they are doing. They work to heal, little dancer, not to harm."

I did not know what else to say to her, and could only be thankful when she nodded, and eased her hand from mine to pick up her cutlery and finish her meal. I did the same, watching her, and tried not to feel guilty that she had extracted an apology from me, and that that apology was entirely justified.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_Meg._

I finished the rest of the wine myself when Erik had left for the evening. He had been troubled, I could tell, and it had taken courage on my part to challenge him, but I had needed to explain and justify my anger. He still seemed to struggle with the notion that other people had feelings as strong as his. He looked tired, and I knew that his concern for Mother was as strong as mine. She was his oldest and dearest friend, his saviour, and, perhaps unbeknownst to both of them, his companion when there had been no other. I was familiar enough by now with male and female interactions to know that there was no romantic or sexual interest between them. Their relationship was platonic and respectful, and if—_when_—the worst occurred it would hit him hard.

Desperate to escape these writhing thoughts, I put on my coat and picked up my keys. _Terra firma_ for tonight, though. The events of last night and this morning were unclear in my mind and I was uncertain what had happened after Erik and I had left the hospital, what had been real and what had been a dream. But either way, I would be keeping both feet on the ground.

The night was cloudless and cold, and I thrust my hands into my pockets and walked down to the seafront, letting the salt-and-seaweed wind coming off the waves clear my head as much as possible. When summer arrived, I decided, I would start swimming in the shallows of this beautiful beach. It had been a long time since I had learned to swim, and it was an activity I enjoyed. As much as I loved music and dance, they were my occupation, and I wanted something that was outside of Erik's reach.

The Imaginarium was closed to the public on Mondays. For those whose sole duty was manning the stalls or rides, it was a day off. For those who performed, crafted or constructed things, it was a work day. Monday was a day of rehearsal for me and the others who performed; with Erik being such an exacting taskmaster, his performers needed all the rehearsal time we could get. He had ideas of perfection that the rest of us were expecting to achieve, come Hell or High Water.

I wondered whether Mother's aneurysm came under the category of Hell or that of High Water as Erik and I rattled along the Brooklyn streets in a taxicab, and then thought that I was being unfair. He acknowledged that the people who worked for him had lives outside of his business, and it was a mark of how much he had changed over the last six years. I could not imagine the Angel of Music allowing people time off work for other commitments or personal reasons. It was my own intervention that had prevented Erik from tutoring the sixteen-year-old Christine Daaé in the early hours of the morning instead of at a more reasonable time. He might have thought that Christine had deliberately missed her singing lesson if I had not arrived on the stage of the Paris Opera House in her place. I had suffered a rope burn to the throat for my trouble, a result of Erik's Punjab lasso, but he had taken into account that other people needed more rest than he did. Now, we sat side by side, jostling each other as we made the journey to the Benjamin Rush Hospital and Asylum. I tried to sponge the last word of the building from my mind; my father had been a madman, incarcerated in an asylum for a few months before he took his own life, and I feared that my life was going the same way.

To his credit, Erik knew that my fear of the medical profession had escalated into a phobia. When we exited the cab outside of the hospital, Erik linked his arm through mine. It was just the gesture that a man should make when accompanying a young lady, but also ensured that he could catch me if the anxiety flapping at the back of my mind like a colony of bats overwhelmed me to the point of collapse. It meant that I could not run away from that which scared me most. The very smell of the building made me want to vomit.

"Be brave, little dancer," Erik murmured. "Just keep breathing."

Mother was lying in the third bed on the right as we entered the ward, out of seven on each side of the long room. When I saw her for the first time, her raven-black hair fastened in a braid over her right shoulder and her face as white as the bedsheets and hospital gown, I could not help but weep. I did not know enough to understand what an aneurysm was, how it was treated or how it affected its victims. I just knew, somewhere in my spotty education, that it was fatal. I had a vague memory of being six or seven—I can't have been much older because my father featured in it—of an overheard conversation in which 'aneurysm' had been revealed as the cause of a patron's death. He had died while he was watching an opera. I remembered hoping that the unfortunate patron had enjoyed what he had seen of the performance; I must have been too young to understand the concept of death.

It was the end of June by the time Mother was well enough to leave the hospital. I had struggled through the Imaginarium's Spring season, but I knew that the worry for her health weighed on more than just my shoulders. Erik and I were the closest to her, but it surprised me how many other employees of the Imaginarium counted Antoinette Giry as a friend. Throughout her hospital stay, visitors and bouquets arrived for Mother, with well-wishes for her recovery.

When I had first seen her awake in the hospital bed, she had been unable to communicate. She could speak, but her words were a mixture of English and French, a stream of nonsense that meant nothing Mother knew what she was trying to say, but the words that left her lips bore no relation to those on her mind. It had terrified me to tears, but her doctor told me that this was a side-effect of the aneurysm which would hopefully be temporary.

In those early days, that only thing that really calmed her was music. She relaxed when I sang to her, and Erik brought in his violin to play. It took weeks of work for Mother to regain control of her speech in both languages, and even then, walking more than a few steps was such a struggle that Mother discarded her cane in favour of a wheelchair. She would never be able to dance again, and her ability to read and write was gone altogether.

Erik was as astonished as I was when Mother told us that she intended to continue working for him at the Imaginarium, choreographing new dance routines.

"Now that I have control of my tongue, I can describe to Meg and the others what I envision," she insisted. "I can even draw it."

I myself was dubious; I did not know how someone could choreograph if they could not walk. I was not privy to the discussions Mother and Erik had, and was ashamed by the notion that he had more faith in her than I did. As soon as we knew when Mother was leaving the Benjamin Rush Hospital, Erik set about making the Imaginarium accessible for a wheelchair. Ramps sprung up like flowers around the amusement park; anywhere I could go on foot, Mother could follow. The only exception was Erik's office, right at the peak of the Imaginarium, like the crow's next at the top of an old sailing ship or a fortress on top of a mountain. One needed a good reason, strong legs and a healthy pair of lungs to make it all the way up those stairs. I was astonished when I heard him talking about having an elevator installed for the express purpose of going from the ground floor to his office. Maybe it would be a private one that only a select few could use. I myself had never been inside such a contraption, and was not keen on the idea of being suspended inside a metal box by a cable, no matter how safe they were supposed to be. I would stick to the stairs, if given the choice.

"All this wheeling myself around is going to give me incredible upper-body strength," Mother commented as she rolled herself up the ramp to her apartment in the Grand Circle. "I'll have muscles like Paul the Strongman."

I chuckled and followed her inside. Both Erik and I had offered to push the wheelchair for her, but Mother had flatly refused. It was a way of maintaining her independence, I knew. I had offered to move into her ground-floor apartment, at least on a temporary basis, to assist her while she got used to her reduced mobility, but this was also gently rejected.

Erik, too, was dubious about the idea of Mother 'choreographing by proxy', as he put it. There were twelve dancers in all that she oversaw—seven women including myself, and five men—and we were familiar enough with her terminology and techniques to at least attempt translating her verbal commands into actions. It wasn't the same; it never could be.

Erik watched us all from the doorway of the Imaginarium's rehearsal studio, his arms folded as he leant against the frame. He had been doing something manual around the Imaginarium, I judged by his clothing. He wore brown trousers and sturdy boots, an off-white shirt that had been better days, and black braces over his shoulders to keep the trousers from slipping. I could see the seam line where the trousers had been extended to accommodate his unusually tall height; the only other person I knew over six feet tall was the Imaginarium's doctor and part-time performer, Dr. Gotreich. As always, Erik wore a mask over the deformed right side of his face, as white as bone, and his mismatched eyes, one blue and one green, watched Mother the whole time.

"A word in your ear," I told him when the dancers had dispersed and Mother had wheeled herself away down the corridor. He raised his eyebrow and I wondered if he thought I was being impertinent.

"My office?"

"I don't think my legs are up to climbing all those stairs," I said, scowling. "Are you needed somewhere?"

"Not immediately," he sat down on the piano bench, his hands in his lap. "What do you have to say?"

I stood before him, my feet in third position, pleating my light cotton rehearsal dress between my fingers.

"You aren't going to keep Mother on as choreographer, are you?"

"I was surprised by what I saw today," he said after a pause. "I have not seen a choreographer teach a routine without demonstrating it themselves before. She took you through it before today, didn't she? So that you could dance it for the others in her stead." I opened my mouth. "Don't trouble yourself to lie, Meg, it is perfectly clear."

"What of it?" I challenged, lifting my chin. "It was a good routine, it works very well with the music."

"Mmm."

"You disagree?" The fingers at my skirt had clenched into a fist.

"How many evenings did it take for you to learn the routine well enough to teach it to the others?"

"I wasn't teaching—"

"Oh, Meg," he sighed my name as he dropped his masked face into one hand, rubbing his bare cheek. "I don't know what the correct course of action is. Antoinette is my dearest friend, but I how can I employ a choreographer who is unable to dance?"

"You can't take this away from her. You just can't. She has lost so much—her legs, her literacy. You can't take this from her too."

"What other choice do I have? This method, ingenious though it is, takes too long. It will take twice the time for a routine to be learned—more than that. You are my leading lady, I cannot spare you so that Antoinette can teach you and you can teach the rest. What am I to do? Tell me, girl, I am open to suggestions."

"I don't know," I muttered.

"Nor do I." He looked weary, worried, upset. "And it must be _her_ decision, in the end. She knows better than I what she is capable of. But choreographing in this way is not practical in the long term." He looked up at me. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. I _pray_ that Antoinette will regain the full use of her legs. But I feel forced to reassign her."

"She'll be devastated." I shook my head.

"I know." He stood up. "Don't look at me like that. You know that I will always pay your mother a wage, regardless of her abilities."

"That's charity," I objected.

"Then tell me the solution, girl!" He returned, throwing up his hands in exasperation and pacing around me to the other side of the piano. "If _you_ were consigned to a wheelchair, I would not hesitate to replace you as leading lady. The whole point of an understudy is to take over when you are unable to perform. I have no understudy choreographer."

I nodded thoughtfully, not insulted that I could be replaced at a moment's notice. During the months of Mother's recovery, I had been working what I thought of as part time hours. The Imaginarium shows I did not perform were headlined by Helen Roylott. It was an unusual arrangement within the world of light entertainment, but the norm in opera.

"If _I_ lost the use of my legs and couldn't dance, what would you reassign me to?"

"You would sing," he answered, almost at once. "I have not spent hours of time improving your vocal skills to let you waste them."

"Assume that I can't carry a tune in a bucket, that I never progressed beyond nursery songs and hymns."

He let out of breath of laughter, and looked me up and down.

"A pianist. You really do have talent with the piano, Meg."

"Flattery will not accomplish anything. No, in this scenario, I lost the use of my legs because a piano fell on me and I have vowed never to go near one again."

"You could just say that Antoinette does not play a musical instrument and cannot sing."

"Come on now, use your imagination. The hypothetical me cannot dance, sing, or play the piano. Where do you reassign me?"

Erik rounded me again and resumed his seat on the piano bench, drumming his fingers on the closed lid. His eyes studied my every feature from head to toe as though I were a model he was preparing to paint, and I stood still, patiently waiting.

"Sewing," he said at last. "I would have you sew. Maybe paint props or scenery… But Antoinette _can_ sew."

"Can she?" I wondered doubtfully. "She can't read, she says all the letters merge together."

"She is illiterate, not innumerate," Erik said, and then, when he saw my confusion: "letters may merge together, but numbers do not. She can still follow a pattern, and your mother is a talented seamstress."

He was right; how had I not thought of this myself? After my father had died, the Girys had lost a substantial income. We were not quite a single-income family, since the Paris Opera House also paid me a wage, but it was an amount that would barely have covered my living expenses if I had not had accommodation in the Opera House dormitories. I had grown up with clothes that were second-hand contributions from other people, and required some tailoring to ensure that they fitted me as I matured from girl to woman. I am disproportionate as far as ballerinas go, with a bosom too large for my frame. In addition to making some of the stage hands and other men around me call me a slut long before I knew the definition of the word, it meant that the hand-me-down garments had to be tailored to fit me. The tailoring had been done by my mother. After we had moved to America, Mother had made nightwear for Erik's unusually tall frame, and we had both worked in textile factories. Her sewing skills had not been robbed by the aneurysm, since afterwards I had seen her working on embroidery during her time in hospital.

It was December 1884 when Antoinette Giry's life changed forever. She was one of the prima ballerinas at the Opera House in Paris, and had never been happier. Over a decade earlier, at the age of eighteen, Antoinette Étourneau had defied her parents and married the love of her life, an Opera House pianist named Claude Giry. The Étourneau family had disowned her, cutting her off from a fortune that would otherwise be hers. She had thought it romantic that she had fallen, head over heels, for the young pianist. It had been an uncomfortable adjustment, especially when Antoinette had realised that she was expecting a child with her new husband. Now, with little Meg a six-year-old who believed whole-heartedly in _Père Noël_ and had proven skilled in both playing the piano like her father and ballet dancing like her mother, Antoinette was happy.

She was returning to the Opera House by carriage, laden down with Christmas gifts and wondering how Claude and Meg had spent their day, when the accident occurred. The first thing Antoinette knew of it was the rattle of hooves, the shouts of men, and then the world tumbled as the carriage tipped onto its side, the wood buckling, and she was pinned under the weight of a screaming horse. For years, that screaming would haunt her nightmares. Less than a mile from the Opera House she called home, two other horse-drawn carriages collided with Anotinette's and she was trapped in a tangle of broken wood and the body of the dying animal. It had been hours before she had been freed and sent to hospital with her left leg broken in so many places that Antoinette was sure that she would never dance again.

Antoinette was thirty-one years old, an age at which some prima ballerinas might choose to retire from the stage. She had been discussing the possibility with Claude; she had never expected to decision to be made for her. It was almost a year before Antoinette's shattered left leg had healed enough to let her dance. She would never be a prima ballerina again, but she could still dance well enough to teach and to choreograph. It meant using a cane to walk, which would gradually improve over the years, but her right side was undamaged and still channelled the magic of dance that flooded her soul.

Fate had caught up with Antoinette Giry in March 1900, and finally robbed her of her dancing ability altogether.

Erik commandeered my dressing room to deliver his decision, several days after our conversation. I could not bear to be in that cramped space with them, but also wanted to be within call if Mother should need me.

"You are my right hand, Antoinette," I heard Erik say in gentle tones. "Please don't talk so."

I wondered what she had said to him, as I paced the corridor outside, silent in my soft-soled ballet slippers.

"It may be my name on the lease, but the Imaginarium would not exist without you and your daughter."

"I cannot _read_, Erik!"

"Half the population of this country cannot read; it does not diminish your diplomacy or how good you are with people."

Mother's voice did not carry as well as Erik's and as my pacing took me away from the dressing room door, I could not hear her reply. I continued to the end of the corridor, where a right turn would lead me to the stage left wings and the orchestra pit, then spun on my heel to retrace my steps.

"…I know that. But you have so much more to offer."

"Sewing is a hobby, Erik, I never wanted to make a career…"

I passed by the door in the opposite direction, back and forth along the corridor, picking up snippets of the conversation each time I was close enough to the dressing room.

"…what you _can_ do, even if you…"

"…my limitations. I was starting to believe…"

"…open my eyes to a group of people…"

"…in the public eye, or on the stage. These days…"

"…bring some organisation to the area."

"…who has the training and the communication skills. Meg?"

I stopped, thinking that Mother was calling me, but Erik's reply put paid to that.

"I cannot spare her. She has too much work to do as it is, as my leady lady. She cannot…"

I started pacing again, my heart pounding and anxiety twisting my stomach.

"Grace Gibson, maybe. She is talented in the areas of dance that…"

"…to review those pieces before they are shown to…"

"Meg?" Mother called my name at last.

"You can stop eavesdropping now." Erik's dry remark confirmed the summons. I hurried to the dressing room and put my head around the door. Mother was in her chair in front of the vanity table, and Erik was sitting in the armchair, one ankle resting on the other knee.

"There's no need to look so scared," he said, amusedly. "You are not walking onto a battlefield."

"Am I not?" I took Mother's hand as I stood by her side.

"Erik and I have come to an agreement with regards to my future in the Imaginarium. I believe that you helped him find a new role for me. Darling, really, don't look so worried. I never truly believe that things could continue the way they were, given my condition. I am going to take over the wardrobe department, and Grace Gibson will assume choreography duties. Under my supervision, at first anyway."

"Mama," I searched her face. "Are you terribly unhappy?"

"No, my love." She squeezed my hand. "I am still to be as involved in the Imaginarium as I ever was. I daresay it would fall to pieces without my supervision."

"Undoubtedly." Erik nodded.

I think I have learned how people behave when they lie, in particular when they lie about their emotions. Mother was truthful when she said that Erik's decision did not make her 'terrible unhappy', but she was not content. It was the best of a bad situation, but the changes that the aneurysm had wrought on her had twisted Antoinette Giry's world out of shape. I wished the I knew how to set it right, but it was beyond my power. I could only hope that Mother was a more adaptable person than I.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

_Erik._

When I established the permanent base for the Imaginarium on Coney Island, I thought that I had considered every eventuality. I was wrong, perhaps as a result of my own inexperience. I should have remembered how men at the Paris Opera House drooled like dogs over the chorus girls, ballerinas and even the prima donnas. I had paid little attention until it had been Christine Daaé in their sights, and jealousy had motivated my interest.

I promised my employees a life better than any they could expect with other fair managers. I held myself to that promise, even after my dream was solidified into a permanent structure on Coney Island.

The late nights can be treacherous for the women who must walk home from work after the last performance at the Imaginarium has concluded. Most travel in groups, packs, to protect themselves against the dangers of Brooklyn. But the first peril, it turned out, was leaving the Imaginarium itself.

It a thick, heavy night in late May, midsummer pressing into the time I still called spring. The Imaginarium's rides, restaurants and sideshows had closed ninety minutes before, the final performance in the concert hall was over, and Meg, Antoinette and I had finished having a nightcap with Thomas Seymour, one of our investors. Seymour and the Girys exited through the main entrance, while I went through the stage door, lingering a few minutes to make sure that all the evening's tasks had been performed. I could not see the Girys when I left, but there were still plenty of people milling around, apparently in no rush to go home. Sleep would not be easy or comfortable on a night such as this.

"Come on, baby," the drunken male slurring reached my ears. "Don't be a prude."

"Let go of me, please!"

I might have ignored the drunkard if the second voice had not been female, and in distress. I looked over the heads of the crowd for the source of the disturbance. A little distance from the concert hall's main entrance, Lucy Phelps, one of my dancers, was struggling against the grip of a middle-class man. Judging by his dress, he had been an attendee of the evening's performance, although he had discarded his suit jacket and his bowtie was hanging loose around his neck.

"Come on now, I watched you dancing. My friends and I want a little private dance, don't we boys?"

The men around him jeered and one of them seized Lucy around the waist as she tried to push her way free of the group. She gave another cry of distress, although I did not see the cause, and I started towards her.

"Alright, gentlemen, that's enough!" The voice of Thomas Seymour sounded out, and as I reached the group I saw him put an arm around Lucy's shoulders. "This woman is a lady. If you want a whore, then head to the West side of the island and find one. Leave these girls alone."

"Slut," the man snarled at Lucy. "Frigid whore."

"That is an oxymoron," I said as I joined them. "You heard him. Be gone with you before we are forced to take this matter further. Go!"

At times, being six-foot-four can be an advantage.

"Are you alright, Miss… Phillips, is it?" Seymour was asking the girl.

"Phelps. Lucy Phelps."

Lucy was a slim girl, taller than her fellow dancers, a few years older than Meg, who had joined my employment in April. Her red hair was tied back in a braid, her fringe sticking to her forehead with sweat. She was wearing a long skirt and a short-sleeved light blue blouse due to the weather, but she was shaking as if she was standing in a snowstorm. Someone had tugged at her blouse and two of the buttons were missing, revealing a glimpse of cream undergarments beneath. I took off my jacket and draped it around the girl's shoulders.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, Mr Danton, they didn't hurt me. I was just frightened." She pulled the jacket close around her, as if for protection.

"Naturally. Thank you for your intervention, Mr Seymour. I will walk you home, Miss Phelps."

"Goodnight, Mr Danton. Miss Phelps."

Seymour bowed and I placed a hand on the dancer's back, turning her towards the Imaginarium's main gates. She was still trembling despite the sticky heat of the evening.

"I don't want to take you out of your way," Lucy looked uncertain. "I'm only in Mrs Warren's boarding house on Canary Street, just around the corner."

"It is no trouble at all, and you have had a shock. I am going to see you to your door and make sure no more ruffians accost you. I cannot tolerate men who are vile towards women."

My tone must have sounded darker than I meant it to, as I thought of Joseph Buquet, the drunken stagehand back at the Paris Opera House. He had behaved atrociously to the woman around him, from the youngest ballerinas to the matriarch Madame Giry. His comments towards Christine had overstepped the mark, and he was fondling Meg's breasts only moments before I got my hands on him. He had been a pleasure to kill.

"It's something that we get used to, it happens often enough."

I looked down at Lucy, surprised.

"How often do experience that sort of behaviour?"

She shrugged. "Once or twice times a week, I suppose. Never quite as… _extreme_ as that, I suppose, but men often harass women in the street."

"Around the Imaginarium? I've never noticed."

"I suppose the crowds are thinner when you usually leave, sir. And it's not usually as blatant as that. But there's plenty of 'flattering' comments thrown around outside the Imaginarium towards the dancers. Well, any woman who leaves the building."

"That is disturbing. I would have expected better from the men who attend the Imaginarium."

She laughed, a tremulous sound with no humour in it. "It's human nature, isn't it?"

"Mmm. Perhaps."

We only walked for a few minutes before turning into Canary Street, and Lucy reached into her skirt pocket for her key.

"I'm just here. Thank you for walking me home, Mr Danton."

She took off my jacket and passed it back to me.

"You're welcome. And I will see what can be done about the abuse you have suffered tonight."

She gave a small shake of the head. "I don't see how. Women have been receiving unwanted attention from men for centuries, and probably will for centuries more. Goodnight, Mr Danton."

"Goodnight, Miss Phelps."

As my steps took me through the Brooklyn streets towards my own home, I pondered on whether anything could really be done to prevent the women in my employ being subjected to harassment by the patrons. Maybe Lucy was right; human nature cannot be changed. Could the attention be diverted, though? Thomas Seymour's words ran through my mind:

"_If you want a whore then head to the West side of the island and find one."_

The next morning, I did exactly that.

I had never been to the West side of Coney Island before. I had been warned that the criminals of Coney congregated there, as if criminals did not walk the streets of every town, city and country in the world. It was here that I found the slums of the Island, the ill-maintained buildings and muck-strewn streets, with a population who had been raised on a diet of poverty and petty theft and had no aims to rise higher.

The boy who had been trailing my steps for the last five minutes can't have been older than fourteen, and I wondered if I had ever been so clumsy as I relieved a stranger of his belongings. No; _I_ had never been caught, whereas this boy had his filthy paw seized within my grip before it had even left my pocket.

"Hey! Let go of me!"

I pulled him around in front of me.

"What do you expect, boy? I had more skill than that when I was half your age. Perhaps a couple of broken fingers will teach you the consequences of your clumsiness."

"You get off me!" He squawked. "I'll have the law on you!"

"Unlikely." I removed his hand from my coat pocket and shifted my hold to his wrist so that the little varmint could not run away. "If you want to keep all of your bones in working order, then you will tell me where I can find a—a house of ill repute."

The boy was still trying to wriggle free, but shot me a bewildered look in between his snarls and scowls. "A what?"

"A whorehouse, boy! A knocking shop, a _brothel_."

"Oh. I guess you'll want Mrs Reid, looking at your threads. She caters to politicians and that sort."

"Lead the way, then. And consider your lack of injury payment for doing so."

It was an empty threat; he was still a child, and I have learned not to take my temper out on children. The boy must have enough hardship in his life if he was forced to make his way by pickpocketing. He led me through streets marinated in neglect until we reached a building that looked like a decrepit hotel. There were black iron railings on either side of the door, and a bright red rose tied to them with twine. Into the black paint of the doorframe, someone had carved a rudimentary phallus. It could have been more of the graffiti that littered the brickwork all around me, but was more likely to be a sign for those looking for such an establishment. I reached into my coat pocket and thrust a banknote into my guide's unresisting hand.

"Get yourself a decent meal," I advised. "Be off with you."

When he had gone, I grasped the ornamental knocker and rapped it firmly against the door. The young woman who answered smiled automatically as the door swung open, her expression faltering momentarily as she saw my mask, before she composed herself and purred:

"How can I help you, sir?"

"I want to see the master or mistress in this establishment," I told her.

"Oh," she rolled her eyes. "You're one of _those_. Well come in then, dog. Nancy will see to you. In!" She added when I did not move, feeling the heat bring colour to my face from the shirt collar up.

"You misunderstand me, Mademoiselle," I said, crossing the threshold. "I am a business owner. I assume there is a madam or a pimp? I want to speak to the person who runs this place."

The young woman's face flooded with comprehension as she closed the front door behind me, and I wished that she would leave it open to bring some air into this stuffy hallway, papered in a dark green that reminded me of mould on bread. There was an unusually long coatrack filled with male hats and coats. The hallway ended in a staircase and just before it there was a door in the left-hand wall.

"Mrs Reid!" The woman shrieked with all the grace of a banshee. "Gent here to see you!"

Her voice made me wince, the way an out-of-tune violin did, like the sound of fingernails on a blackboard. A minute later, a matronly woman in an extremely fashionable purple dress descended the staircase towards me.

"Thank you, Molly," she said to my companion, who went through the door to my left, revealing a brief glimpse of a parlour, where half-a-dozen women were engaged in a card game.

"My name is Mrs Reid, and I am the owner of this house." She extended her hand and I shook it. "I cater to all tastes. Voluptuous, experienced, ripe for the plucking, what's your fancy?"

"Madam," I nodded to her. "My name is Mr Danton, I own the Imaginarium on the East side of the Island. It is a new entertainment park," I added at her blank expression. "Only there since the beginning of the year. I am not here for my own pleasure, I have a business proposition to put to you. If we could talk somewhere privately?"

"Certainly."

"An office or such," I clarified, and she smiled.

"My books do not see to themselves, Mr Danton. Please, follow me."

The room she took me to hardly deserved the term 'office'. It was small, with only a chest of drawers, two chairs and a desk. Mrs Reid gestured me to the chair on the visitor's side of the desk as she took the other.

"So, Mr Danton, owner of the Imaginarium on the East side of the Island. What can I do for you?"

She was watching me intently, scrutinising my mask as though she could see the flesh beneath.

"Part of the Imaginarium is a concert hall, and when the evening's shows are over, some of my male patrons are latching onto the women I employ, looking for further entertainment."

Mrs Reid nodded. "Singers and dancers?"

I knew what she was thinking; everyone thought that singers and dancers were little better than whores in the first place.

"Not just them. Any female who works for me is viewed, by the men, as fair game. I cannot allow it to continue."

"And what do you think I can do about it?"

"I would like some of your girls to be stationed around the concert hall, say from nine o'clock in the evening until eleven. Girls who will distract these men from my employees."

"I see," Mrs Reid clasped her hands on the desk and nodded. "Yes, I think that can be arranged. You have chosen well, Mr Danton, my girls are gemstones. How many evenings a week?"

"Five. Tuesday to Saturday."

"Very well. I think we have a deal, Mr Danton."

She began to stand, then hesitated when I remained in my seat.

"Hardly. I am not going to allow you and your wolf pack to go hunting on my property without some compensation. I want twenty five percent of the takings from men fished at the Imaginarium."

Mrs Reid sat down again, looking at me shrewdly. Here we were, at the crux of the situation.

"Five," she haggled.

"Twenty."

"Seven."

"Twelve."

"Done!" She seized my right hand and pumped it before I could add more caveats to the negotiation. "I'll send some of my best girls along this evening."

"Make sure they dress well, the 'clients' consider themselves gentlemen."

"You underestimate me, Mr Danton. I have been in business for two decades."

I did not doubt it. The state of her establishment and dress told me that she thought of herself, as well as her girls, as a gemstone. I looked at her, and saw a jade.

Reid's women arrived a little earlier than we had agreed. Between the late afternoon and early evening shows, I saw Molly sitting in the bar, eager eyes running over the figures of the male patrons when I went to confirm the stock take with Bernard, the bar manager.

"We've got enough to last us through to the end of the month anyway," He told me. "Oh, thank you, Meg." He grinned at Meg as she set a tray on the bar, filled with empty glasses and plates from the lunch she and her colleagues had been eating in the green room. "No breakages?"

"Not today," she grinned back as she unloaded the crockery onto the bar.

"That is not complimentary," I nodded at Molly's beverage as I passed her. "And you would do better to keep your wits about you. Curtain down is not until half past ten."

Molly raised her glass of gin to me. "I don't tell you how to do your business, Mr Danton. You should not tell me how to do mine."

"What's going on?" Meg asked, following me into the backstage corridor, the empty tray swinging in her left hand. "Who is that lady?"

I could not help but scoff. "A _lady_ is one thing she is not. You never told me that men were harassing you in the Imaginarium, Meg."

She looked surprised. "No-one is harassing me."

"In the streets, after the performances. Mr Seymour and I had to break up a particularly nasty incident last night. Miss Phelps was being pawed at by one of the patrons. She said that all you girls are frequently subjected to similar sorts of behaviour."

"Is she alright?" Meg's tone was alarmed. "Was she hurt?"

"She is quite well, and was merely shaken. But you, young lady, ought to have told me that this sort of thing was going on."

Meg just shrugged. "Why would I? It's not as though anything can be done about it."

"Of course something can be done about it. Molly out there will, I hope, be the solution to the problem."

"I still don't understand who she is."

"She is a prostitute."

Meg caught hold of my sleeve, bringing me to a stop. "You have hired a _prostitute_?"

"I believe I have hired several. Not for _myself_, Meg, why are you looking at me like that?" Her incredulous brown eyes were fixed on my face.

"I—_why_? Why have you hired prostitutes?"

I explained my reasoning, that the women would divert attention from herself and her colleagues, and her expression became tinged with disgust.

"I never thought that you would ever have a role in the peddling of flesh, Erik." She started to walk again.

"Peddling—? No, Meg, that is not what I am doing."

"Isn't it? Are you getting money from this exchange?"

"A pittance."

"Then I see no difference."

It was my turn to reach out for Meg's arm to stop her increasing momentum along the corridor.

"I have not _recruited_ women to do this, Meg. It was their choice to become what they are. If they were not working around the Imaginarium then they would be on any other street corner of Brooklyn."

Meg's eyes were shining as though she were about to cry.

"But that's how you see things. You see a problem and come up with a solution, regardless of how that solution may be detrimental to other people."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

She lowered her head, but I curved a finger under her chin, lifting it so that she could not look away.

"This has upset you. You would rather be subjected to verbal and possibly physical assault in the street?"

"Of course not," she answered quietly. "But it's as though you're sending those women out there like lambs to a wolf pack."

"I'm not forcing anyone, Meg. I haven't made anyone do what is not already her occupation."

"It's not an occupation women aspire to. It is one taken out of desperation, because circumstances demand it, because there is no other choice."

"How much knowledge can you have of such matters, little dancer?"

"Little dancer," she repeated. "You know the reputation dancers have. When I was a ballerina at the Paris Opera House, it would have been all too easy to fall into that underworld. Many dancers did, you know that as well as I do. When… when I was a factory worker in Brooklyn, some of the women I worked with had to sell themselves to make ends meet. How would you feel, Erik, if that woman out there was your sister? Or your daughter?"

"She is not."

"She is someone's sister. She is someone's daughter." Meg stepped backwards, out of reach. "The next show starts in an hour. I have to get back into costume."

She marched to her dressing room and entered.

"I will not allow drunken blackguards to abuse my staff, Meg." I told her.

"Then close the bar earlier," she replied, and shut the door in my face.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

_Meg._

I leant against my dressing room door and pressed my hands over my face so hard that I impeded my own efforts to breathe deeply.

_He doesn't know. He can never know._

I could imagine Erik staring at the other side of the door with that rarest of expressions on his face: perplexity. As observant as he could be, he had no knowledge of the time I had spent selling my body so that I could keep up the income needed to cover our expenses. Or that is what I had believed, at the time.

On my eighteenth birthday, I had been attacked on the way home from my twelve-hour shift at a textiles factory, resulting in concussion, several broken bones and almost a month in a Brooklyn hospital. Mother, Erik and I had lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the other side of the district then, struggling to cover our bills even though all three of us had full-time employment. The hundreds of dollars my hospital stay cost weighed heavily on my shoulders in layers of guilt, only exacerbated by returning to my factory job to find that I had been replaced, and that only a morning shift there was available.

I had not lied to Erik when I told him that some of my colleagues had worked as prostitutes to supplement their income. I had just neglected to add that I had been one of them. I jumped when Erik knocked on the door, and lowered my hands.

"Yes?"

"Vocal warmup onstage in thirty minutes."

"Yes!"

I listened to his footsteps as he went along the corridor, knocking on dressing room doors and repeating the direction, then gave myself a little shake and went to the vanity table to begin applying my makeup. The woman in the mirror still looked conflicted, burdened by her secrets. There was no use in dwelling on the past; I had tried to believe that for a long time. It did not change what had been and gone. I could only try to atone for my wrongdoings, even if one of them faced me almost every day with smiling blue eyes, a ready laugh and a hand always willing to reach into his pocket for the money to keep funding Erik's Imaginarium. It was hardly a one-sided exchange. I did not know much about the Imaginarium's finances but I did know that it was making a profit, and some of that profit was returned to the investors, like Mr Thomas Seymour.

Once made up and dressed, I went to Lucy Phelps' dressing room and knocked.

"Who is it?"

"Meg Giry."

"Come in, I'm decent."

All the dressing rooms in the Imaginarium's concert hall were more or less the same with windows high in the walls and little furniture. The majority had room for between four and six people, but this one, like mine, was private. The vanity table, armchair and rack of clothing took up most of the space. On the vanity table was a vase of flowers, beginning to wilt, and pinned to the wall were the cards Lucy had received from her colleagues, family and friends for her birthday the week before. She was sitting at the vanity in full costume, applying her makeup with a steady hand. She smiled at me in the mirror, a mascara wand raised.

"Hello, Meg. Give me a moment. If I try to talk and apply mascara at the same time, I'll poke myself in the eye."

I sat down in the armchair and waited until she had completed her eye makeup, and she turned on the vanity stool to look at me.

"What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to make sure that you are alright. Mr Danton said you were attacked by a group of ruffians last night."

"I'm alright. I was a bit shaken up, but they didn't hurt me and Mr Seymour and Mr Danton saw them off. It's sweet of you to check."

"Mr Danton has seen fit to deal with the issue of harassment with his usual efficiency." Even to my own ears my tone sounded bitter.

"What do you mean?"

"He's hired prostitutes to hang around the concert hall, as a distraction from us. So that any men who want women can have them without pawing at us."

Lucy's expression was a mixture of surprise, confusion and unease. Eventually, she said:

"At least he has done something about the situation. No other boss I've had has even given a thought to the wellbeing of his female employees. At least in that regard."

I sighed and nodded, looking down at my hands.

"Thank you for telling me," she added. "I was going to come and speak to you later, about those fabric scraps. Do you still want them?"

"Yes please," I could not help but smile. "If you're sure you don't need them."

"I'm sure. But do you think you're going to have enough time? It's a large project to take on alone, and I thought that I might be able to help. Only if you want me too. We could do it at my place, and then there's no chance of your mother seeing it before it is complete."

"Oh, Lucy," my smile became a beam. "That is incredibly kind of you, thank you. Yes, I would love your help."

"I'll go to the wardrobe department as well and see about getting scraps from there too. It would look suspicious if you did, given that Madame Giry works there now."

Mother's move from choreographer to head of the wardrobe department had been just one of many changes that had taken place over the last few months. Dr Wilhelm Gotreich, the German doctor who was as thin as a rake and approaching seven feet tall, had withdrawn from his role as a performer. Instead, he had shadowed Erik for weeks, learning even more deeply how he wanted the concert hall to be run, and become its stage manager, relieving Erik of that duty. He was also able to get help with the paperwork and his administrative duties by hiring a secretary. Mrs Johnson was a mature-looking woman with long grey hair usually wound in a single thick braid around her head, and eyes such a pale brown that they were almost gold. She had worked as a typist for the last decade, and lived in the apartment next to mine at the Grand Circle, where we occasionally met in the hallways. Erik had divided the huge space at the top of the building into an inner office and an outer office, where Mrs Johnson worked, accompanying the clattering of typewriter keys with her own soft humming. According to her, she would get a song or piece of music in her head, and spend the day humming it to herself without even knowing that she was doing it.

"Thank you." I reached out to give her hand an impulsive squeeze. I did not know Lucy very well yet, but I did know that she lived in an all-female boarding house close to the Imaginarium, that she had taught herself to dance without any formal training, and that there was a line of pale skin on the ring finger of her left hand. At some point, she had been married or engaged. I assumed that the relationship must have broken down, since in my experience a woman whose partner had died still wore her wedding or engagement ring, as Mother and I did.

As I returned to my own dressing room, I wondered if any of my other friends might be interested in helping with my project. In November, only a few weeks after I turned twenty-two, Mother would have her forty-eighth birthday. My poor, mad father had been only thirty-three when he had shot himself. I had decided to make Mother a quilt for her birthday, made of diamond-shaped pieces of fabric, like those on a playing card. I had designed it with long strips of plain light-coloured fabric between, so that the bright diamond shapes would stand out. It would be a modest gift for such an occasion, but given that Mother knew how much sewing bored me, I hoped she would appreciate it. With Lucy now offering to help, it might not be the struggle I had anticipated.

I changed into my costume, reapplied my makeup, stretched my muscles, and joined my colleagues on the stage. Erik was sitting at the piano in the orchestra pit and took us through the vocal warmup, before wishing us well and leaving to attend to his other duties. I let the others leave the stage and closed my eyes, breathing in the atmosphere. A stage holds a very distinctive feeling for me, even when there is no one else in the auditorium. There is the smell of dust and canvas, sackcloth and makeup. This stage held the hum of the electric lighting, which was still such a novelty to me. And there was a whisper in the air, the faint sound of applause that never quite faded away, as though it seeped into the fabric of the heavy red curtains that now separated me from the rows and rows of seats soon to be filled with patrons.

I wished I was wearing my ballet slippers instead of the dancing shoes that bit into my feet if I wore them for too long. Nevertheless I moved to put myself in centre stage, took another deep breath, and began the steps of the black swan's dance from _Swan Lake_. It was a role I had never played, but once I had seen so many times when I was a child. I did not remember seeing Mother dance it when she was the prima ballerina of the Paris Opera House; but had watched her successor, Fabienne Moineau, with the rapt attention of a disciple. Fabienne had not been good with children, but she had allowed me to watch her dancing on the condition that I did it in silence. I had memorised the routine, and it had never even crossed my mind that perhaps Mother was saddened that I idealised her replacement so much.

"I knew you were a dancer from the first moment I saw you."

I jumped, and turned towards the familiar voice. Thomas Seymour was in the upstage left wings, leaning against the flats, running the chain of his pocket watch between his fingers. He had hardly changed in the years we had been apart, except that his black hair was longer, brushing his shoulders. High cheekbones set off a pale face and bright blue eyes; maybe he had lost a little weight in his face and body. And since his wife had died, he had stopped wearing a wedding ring.

"I remember. You told me that I had a dancer's body."

"And such a beautiful one."

He took my hand as I entered the wings to stand before him. "You flatter me, Mr Seymour."

"Should I not?" He raised the hand he held and kissed the back of it, a gentlemanly, formal gesture.

"You always did flatter me."

"I told you the truth. No more and no less." His warm blue eyes seemed to drink me in, as if he were seeing something beautiful and precious. "I want to kiss you."

"You may."

Thomas wrapped his arms around me; then his right hand slid up my back, over the fine hairs on the back of my neck, and he cupped the back of my head as his lips met mine. I returned his kiss, and thought of the first time he had kissed me, haven given me my first orgasm ever. I kissed him back and I felt… nothing. There had been a time when this man's eyes alone, his wickedly hungry glance that seemed to drink me in like wine, had been enough to double my heartbeat, flip my stomach and steal the breath from my lungs. There had been a time when I thought I was in love with him. It was untrue of course. The shining, childish impression of a girl who had only been used and abused by the others who bedded her. Who believed that a display of human consideration, of compassion, must be an act of true love. How naïve I had been then. How stupid. Even after I met Benedict Adair, the Irish carpenter who stole my heart completely and asked me to become his wife, I had found that Thomas Seymour had the power to rouse lust within me, even as I still grieved Benedict's loss. Today, however, Thomas' kiss failed to ignite that sinful fire within my soul. In the last hour or so, there had been shame and lust, and both emotions pricked against my mind like the scrape of a careless sewing needle on skin. My heart remained locked in a cage of ice, numbed from the world.

"God," Thomas' voice had dropped an octave in his throat. "My muse, my inspiration." The kiss broke and his eyes fixed on mine. "I want to make love to you."

"You may not," I could hear the smile in my tone as I placed my palm against his waistcoat and gently pushed him away. He growled in response.

"Meg Giry…"

"I am a performer, Mr Seymour. An artist. I am not what I once was. Odette is no more."

He sighed, and ran his fingers over the single lock of hair that had escaped from my bun.

"Will I be denied forever?"

"For the foreseeable future. Thomas, you know how I have changed. I can only hope you value my friendship as much as I value yours."

"In friendship," he agreed, taking a step back, still holding my hand and kissing the back of it. "But you do not seem happy, Meg."

"I do well enough," I assured him, knowing instinctively that I could not tell him about my numbness. I could not tell anyone. I was the Imaginarium's leading lady and it was my duty to smile and sparkle for those who came to see Erik's shows, from the moment I put on my costume. Out of the costume, I had to support Mother, who needed me to look after her now more than ever.

Now, Thomas brushed his fingers against my cheek.

"Have a good show," he told me with a smile. "You know where I am."

He departed from my sight, and I was left in the half light of the wings, watching the line of brighter light as he went through the door into the backstage corridor. For a heartbeat I felt complete solitude, but then the other dancers were at my side and it was time to launch the show.

It was not until June of 1900 that I managed to get my life set into a routine. My days had been rigidly structured since I was a little girl, and knowing what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to be at any given time of the week, made me feel comfortable.

It was a fact now that I spent more of my time at the Imaginarium than I did in my own apartment. Five days a week, I arrived at the Imaginarium at eight thirty in the morning, and left it by eleven o'clock at night. Mondays and Wednesdays were rehearsal days, when the Imaginarium was closed to the public. Mondays saw the entire company rehearsing their acts from nine a.m. until six p.m., with an hour for lunch. While most people returned home for the evening, Erik and I took time for supper, and then spent two and a half hours in private rehearsal. On Wednesdays, the two of us spent six hours together as he strived to polish and improve his leading lady's performance. Those days were the most challenging of my week, as Erik was more demanding of me than any audience member. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays encompassed four shows in the concert hall over the fourteen and a half hours we spent there. Even then, Erik usually remained an hour or more longer to oversee the myriad of tasks that closed every working day.

I could never be a business owner like him, would never have the eloquence, money management or the energy required. It was hard enough finding time to do my chores and meal preparation, for those days when I did not eat two of my three meals at the Imaginarium itself. Its kitchen had been taken over by an American woman who had been second-in-command to Mrs Chang when she had been alive and in charge of the Galley. With my working hours set in stone, I allowed my free time to be more fluid. I spent time with Mother, socialising with my colleagues, playing my piano, and working with Lucy on Mother's quilt.

With summer burning into Coney Island from dawn to dusk and the beach only a few minutes' walk away, I found that I could take up a hobby that I had long neglected. I had learned to swim at the de Chagny chateaux in Paris in 1893, having almost drowned a couple of months previously. Now, I started four days a week wearing a bathing costume beneath my clothing, going down to the waterfront, and taking a swim of about thirty minutes. In the cooling water, I felt surprisingly at peace, stretching all my muscles and therefore beginning my day with my body already warmed up for dancing and my emotions energised for the work ahead.

"We have a problem," Erik told me one Wednesday morning in mid-July as I came into the Imaginarium through the stage door. I was wearing a white summer dress with vertical blue stripes, the colour matching the band around my white sunhat, and carrying my towel and bathing costume, along with my underpinnings, in a canvas shoulder bag.

"What problem is that?" I asked breezily, inviting him to follow me to my dressing room with a jerk of my head. I put my bag down next to the vanity table, removed my hat and turned to him.

"Your new hobby." He tugged at the end of my French braid which had swung over my left shoulder, still damp from the seawater. "I do not approve."

"You do not approve of me taking healthy exercise?" I started to undo the braid.

"I do not approve of you going to the beach in the early morning by yourself, turning up here with your hair full of salt, and I certainly don't approve of your wandering around Brooklyn without a corset on."

I blushed. "You should not be looking closely enough to notice, if you call yourself a gentleman."

"Meg, you dislike the measures I have taken to keep you girls safe, do you not?"

"I do."

"Then why do you lay yourself open to attack by being unescorted in the early hours and leaving your charms practically laid bare?"

"Do you think so little of your gender? No one has approached me while I have been swimming; I chose the hour because the beach is sparsely populated, and there is no-one around to see my journey to the Imaginarium. Likewise no-one but yourself has noticed that I am making the ten-minute walk from the beach to the stage door without my corset." I picked up the bag, took my corset from it, and laid it out flat on the surface of my vanity table so that I could make sure that the garment was the right way around and easy to get on, and looked back at the masked man. "Just because you are obsessed with my breasts, Erik, does not mean that the rest of the world is."

"Do not mock me, girl." He replied, his fingers flexing. "You are the leading lady of the Imaginarium. On the stage or off it, you are representing the Imaginarium, and you are representing me."

"I still don't see the problem. I mean, look at this." I moved to the clothing rail and pulled out the hanger with my main costume hanging from it. "It is very close to a ballerina's outfit, yes? That was your aim?"

"It was."

"It shows a girl's legs, and in my case, her cleavage."

"It is a costume, a fantasy."

"Does everyone know that? You want me to go out on stage five days a week dressed in little more than my underwear for the titillation of others, and yet you are disgusted by me being without a corset for a mere ten minutes out of my fifteen-hour day." I crossed the distance between us, the costume held up to my shoulders. "Maybe it is you who has the problem, Erik." His eyes widen and he opened his mouth to speak, but I cut in first. "If a man did notice that I was not wearing a corset _and_ recognised me from the Imaginarium, it might reflect upon you. It might reflect well, Erik, since you call my costume a fantasy. You are selling a fantasy, are you not? What is seduction, if not a fantasy?"

"I am concerned for you."

"You are _controlling_ of me." I rubbed my temples. "And of course you want to be in control of your business and your brand. But I am not your _property_, Erik. I am my own woman with my own feelings and my own agency."

"Do you forget how we met?"

"I remember full well. I remember being a naïve sixteen-year-old who went out alone in Paris in the dead of night, and practically invited a predator to take advantage of her. I have not forgotten that you saved me, Erik. But I am no longer that girl. I walk to the Imaginarium by residential streets, so that I am always within call of other people, in case something were to happen. Christ, what sort of world do we live in that a woman must take precautions again the opposite gender attacking her for no reason?" I focussed on him again. "I am taking care to protect myself, Erik, and no one has noticed me in the streets. Please trust me. I know that you're worried, especially after what happened to Lucy a few weeks ago, but I swear that if I were assaulted in any way, I would tell you."

A lie, I realised too late. I would never tell Erik that I had been forced to relinquish my virginity for his sake.

"I am adjusting to my life here on Coney Island. Please don't take away one of the few pleasures I have found here."

He rocked on his feet, studying me, and I felt the uncomfortable prickle of his attention against my skin.

"On your own head be it," he said at last.

"I will be careful," I promised. "I know what you expect of your leading lady, I do. I won't let you down. Please trust me."

"I do," he nodded. "Now, get _properly_ dressed. We have a lot of work to do today."

I had annoyed him, I knew, because although he kept his voice calm as he coached me, his posture was tense and he pushed me especially hard.

"He's really quite fond you, isn't he?" Lucy commented with a smile when I told her of our argument later that day. "In his own way."

"I do think he means well," I agreed as I threaded my needle. "But he has his own rules for how people do or should behave."

"Don't we all."

We were sitting on either side of her dining room table, working on the quilt for Mother's birthday. Irene Norbury and the Roylott twins had also volunteered to help, and had cut out the patches so that Lucy and I could sew them together. I knew that it would be an ambitious project, but with the limited amount of leisure time I had, could not believe that I had started out thinking that I could do this alone.

"My mother has ideas about the proper decorum of a woman too," Lucy continued. "She doesn't like that I do this."

"Sewing?"

She giggled and threw a scrap of fabric that was formerly a corset cover at my head. "Dancing. Especially in a freak show like this. She might have preferred it if I had danced in a 'real' theatre, like you used to, but even then I don't think so. She wanted me to be a governess."

"Why a governess?"

"Because she thinks it is a respectable position. She doesn't understand that dancing is… is essential to me, like food and drink. She won't come to the shows. My father won't either." She looked down at the fabric strips in her hands. "Phelps isn't really my surname. When I told my parents what I was going to do, that I was going to become a dancer, my father told me that I couldn't do so under the family name. My mother would find it too shameful."

"So why did you choose the name Phelps for yourself?"

She let out a huff of laughter. "I picked it out of a newspaper. I opened the paper, stuck a pin in a page and chose the name closest to that pin." She sighed and began to sew the fabric strips together. "I just wish that my parents could be proud of me. The way your mother is proud of you."

"Mother and I, we have an unusual relationship," I explained. "For years, we only had each other. Her family disowned her when she married my father, because he was a musician and they thought he was beneath her. She was my inspiration, and when Papa died, the last thing he said to me was 'Look after Mama'. So I try."

Lucy reached over and patted my hand.

"I think family is a subjective thing," she said. "I think your _real_ family is the one you create for yourself. So I have a family here now. And I am pleased that you and Madame Giry are a part of it."

I found that I could relax in Lucy's company in a way that I had not been able to since Christine Daaé had been my bosom friend. We had a similar sense of humour, tastes in books and music, and had both been engaged but never married.

"I guess people who grew up in French theatres don't have arranged marriages? My parents chose him when we were both children. He was a good man, honestly. He would have made a good husband, and maybe we could have had a good life together. But he knew that it wasn't what I wanted, so he called off the marriage. That's when I moved to Brooklyn. That's why I came here."

As carefully as we constructed the quilt, we stitched together our friendship. I told her about my relationship with Benedict, about my childhood aspirations, and about growing up in Paris. I wished I could be completely honest with her, but I was still aware that giving too many details would link myself, Mother and Erik back to the Paris Opera House, and to the crimes that we had committed there. I could not tell her that my father had committed suicide, instead giving Lucy the impression that he had died of influenza, and that I had found his body. I lied to her, and wished that I could tell her the truth.

I also knew that Lucy had secrets of her own. Whether those included prostitution and murder, I did not know, but I was certain that Lucy Phelps was made of money. Her apartment was huge and the landlady, Mrs Warren, spoke to her with a deference that I never heard her use with the other tenants. The fabric scraps Lucy provided for the quilt were of the highest quality cottons, satins and velvets, and her own wardrobe contained a surprising amount of silks and lace.

I wondered why, if Lucy had her own income, as I suspected she did, she had made the choice to join a new freak show on Coney Island. Why she had chosen to align herself with the disfigured, the outcast and the odd. There were clues; Lucy was not quite like the other dancers I knew. She had immense knowledge of many forms of dance without the technical expertise that came from a lifetime of training, like mine. Indeed, she mentioned in conversation that she had not developed a serious interest in dance until her parents had taken her to see a production of _Tristan and Isolde _in Germany as a treat for her ninth birthday. My treat for that birthday had been a visit to the circus that had set up in one of Paris's green parks the week before.

Lucy may have known a lot about dance, but her knowledge of other subjects like science, geography and literature was patchy.

"My tutors gave up on me," she told me once. "Words just don't work for me."

Lots of people struggled with literacy, but the news that Lucy had tutors and had still not mastered basic reading and writing seemed strange to me.

The other trait I found odd was Lucy's lack of eye contact. Erik had a gaze that could command one's stare the way a fox could transfix a rabbit. Lucy could not hold anyone's eyes for more than a few seconds. Feeling treacherous, I tried a few times to maintain eye contact, but it was impossible. Her gaze flitted around my face as we talked like a bee buzzing from flower to flower, and I could tell that I was making her uncomfortable.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She burst out eventually.

"I'm sorry. I was trying to work out what colour your eyes are."

"Green," she replied. "My eyes are green."

They flitted around my face, like a moth around a candle flame, and suddenly I saw that tears were forming.

"Lucy," I put down my sewing and reached across the table for her hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

"Don't," she shook her head, dashing away the moisture with the back of her fingers. "I know you think I'm weird."

"I _don't_—"

"Yes, you do, everyone does. Even I do. I know I'm not like other people. Different things matter to you—to _them_—then they do to me. I'm not normal and I never will be."

"If that is what you think, then you are in excellent company," I replied gently, passing her a handkerchief from the ironing pile beside me. "Mr Danton doesn't employ anyone 'normal'."

"But you all go together in your little groups," Lucy wept. "I don't fit in anywhere, even in a freak show. I'm always on the outside, looking in. That's how it feels, like there is no real place for me. And I try, Meg, I really do, but whenever I contribute to a conversation or attempt to join in a group gossiping session at work, I always find myself pushed to the side. Look at Irene's birthday last week. You all went to Angelo's for drinks, but no one invited me. I didn't even know if there was a cake."

I could feel the blush heating my cheeks; I hadn't realised that Lucy had not been invited to Irene's birthday drinks. I assumed that someone else had invited her and that she had declined the invitation. Maybe everyone had thought the same, so no-one had done it.

"I thought you decided not to join us."

"I couldn't go without an invitation."

I almost said that of course she could have, but then remembered her likely upper-class education. She probably thought that it would be an unforgivable breach of etiquette to attend an event uninvited.

"I am truly sorry, Lucy," I told her. "No one means to make you feel excluded. You are a talented dancer, a valuable member of the Imaginarium and my friend. And look at this," I gestured to the quilt, almost completed, across the table between us. "This would never have been possible without you. Lucy, you are a beautiful, talented woman. You are more precious than you know."

Lucy sniffled and smiled at me with watery eyes.

"Do you really think that?"

"I do," I told her honestly. "You might feel left out, but you're always a part of my group."

I wanted to tell her then that I also found it difficult to make and secure friendships, that my thoughts and worries wrapped around me so tightly that I believed I could never truly connect to another human being. But I couldn't. I was too afraid that the truth with drive her away.

From then on I made sure that Lucy was invited to any of the social occasions that I was. Some she accepted, others she declined, but those she did attend saw her making an effort to participate rather than hide in a corner.

We completed the quilt long before Mother's birthday, and it was lovelier than I had imagined. Lucy and I, unwilling to relinquish the newly crafted friendship, had dinner together a couple of times a month, alternating between her apartment and mine.

I approached Erik with the idea of a party first, anticipating his disinterest, albeit for parties in general.

"It's important," I insisted, and eventually he relented.

The celebration of Mother's birthday was more difficult to arrange than I had anticipated. I eventually persuaded Erik to find a reason to keep her back after a day's work, even as the summer seasoned ended and our work shifts more than halved to six hours a day from over thirteen. Unlike other shops and attractions on Coney Island, the Imaginarium did not close for the winter season that began in October.

On the day itself, Erik engineered a wardrobe-related crisis to keep her back after the final curtain fell, white our friends and colleagues squeezed into her apartment, more than I had been prepared for. I had tried my best, feeling that I was exploiting my friends, as Julie made the birthday cake, Helen spread word of the party, Erik's secretary and typist Mrs Johnson created official invitation on her typewriter, and Lucy helped me make bunting from the fabric scraps that had not been suitable for the quilt. I had, I thought as the small apartment filled up, underestimated Mother's popularity.

I insisted on keeping the lights turned off, and was so sensitive to noise that I recognised the sound of the key in the lock the moment Erik opened the main door to the Grand Circle apartment block.

"Hush! Everybody, she's here!"

It took another few seconds for the buzz of conversation to quiet. I could hear the timbre of Erik's voice on the other side of the door, even though I could not hear the words. My breath felt tight in my chest, as though there was an iron bar around my lungs.

The moment the door opened and noise exploded around us, I felt the pressure relax. Mother was more than surprised by the party in her apartment, she was delighted. I held back, grinning like the cat in the Alice story, allowing my friends and colleagues to wish her many happy returns of the day. Many had brought gifts.

Erik had played his part too. Stamford, one of the violinists who also played guitar, and Beddoes, a flutist, had brought their instruments with that at his instruction. Erik himself put his violin under his chin.

I dragged Lucy with me when I presented Mother's gift and did not let her squirm free when Mother unwrapped the quilt, explaining that Lucy had helped me make it. Lucy was embarrassed, blushing from the roots of her hair, but I could not let Mother think that I had made it all on my own.

"I love it," Mother exclaimed. "Both of you, together you've made this amazing quilt for me, and it is a perfect gift. Thank you."

As the evening wore on, the friends and co-workers dispersed to their own homes, and we ended the night with Mother and I seated side-by-side on the sofa, her hand in mine. She turned her head and pressed a kiss to my temple.

"Thank you, my darling. This has been wonderful."

"It has been no more than you deserve," I murmured. "I love you."

"I love you too, Meg."

Erik, a spiral of energy, played his violin for us, melodies that moved my soul and took my breath. Mother rested her head on my shoulder as his long, talented fingers danced over the violin's strings, and when she grew cold, I wrapped the diamond patterned quilt around us both, and turned my head to kiss her as she had kissed me.

I did not have the heart to interrupt this private performance, but after what could have been minutes or hours, Erik lowered the instrument.

"It is late, little dancer. We should let your mother sleep."

"She's not asleep."

I heard my own voice as if it were ten feet away from my ears. All I was aware of was my fingers intertwined with hers, the pulse in my wrist pounding against her cool arm.

"What?" Erik was suddenly on his knees in front of the sofa, and I had not seen him move. The violin and bow were on the carpet six feet behind him. "_What_?!"

His eyes pierced blue and green out of a face that was as white as his mask. The fingers that had been conjuring music from wood and catgut were pressed to the side of Mother's throat, searching for a pulse that could only be found in my own wrist.

"What do we do now?" I asked the universe in general. "What do we do?"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

_Erik._

I am not a man who is prone to losing my senses, and yet I can think of no other explanation as to why I was standing upright one moment, and on my knees the next.

Antoinette was wrapped from the neck down in the beautiful diamond-patterned quilt that Meg had spent months sewing for her. She looked pale and peaceful certainly, but she could not be dead. I knew death, had walked in the shadow of its angel since my formative years, and it did not look like this. My head was full of the beating of drums, the beating of hearts that were not my own, even as I scrambled to find a pulse in her cool wrist. There was nothing, and I struggled to comprehend how Antoinette's heart could no longer be functioning, how I could have lost her. My colleague. My ally. My friend.

"Erik?" Meg's voice was barely more than a whisper. "We need Dr Gotreich."

"Yes—yes, of course," my mind was in turmoil, I could not think. "He may be able to help."

"He can't help, Erik," there was a tremble in the girl's voice. "It's too late for that. But we need him and I can't leave her alone. Please, Erik, please fetch Dr Gotreich. We need to find out what we do next."

I felt detached from my own body as I stumbled from Antoinette's apartment and up two flights of stairs. I had to hold onto the wall to stay upright as I brought my fist down upon the doctor's apartment door. I was hardly aware of the door opening, that Gotreich was in his nightclothes.

"It's Antoinette," was all I managed to say. Without a word, he seized his medical bag from beside the door and passed me, and I heard his footsteps on the stairs. I followed him more slowly, still afraid of falling. When I went back into the apartment, Meg was still seated beside her sleeping Mother, and Dr Gotriech was talking to her, gently disengaging their fingers from one another.

"I don't know," Meg was murmuring numbly. "She said she loved me. Maybe twenty minutes ago, and I didn't know what to do."

I turned to close the door, resting my forehead against it, my mask feeling slippery against my perspiring brow. When I turned back, my gaze went to Antoinette, to Meg, to my violin and bow lying on the carpet. I had been playing my violin, entertaining my dearest friend, and without knowing it, I had been watching her die.

The next thing I knew I was striding across the room and Meg by the shoulders, dragging her to her feet and shaking her like a terrier with a rat.

"You _knew_!" I bellowed at her. "You _knew_ and you didn't say anything! What is _wrong with you_?! I might have been able to save her, you _thoughtless, useless, imbecilic_—"

"Danton, get off her!" Gotreich shoved his way between us, forcing me to let Meg go. "That's enough! For God's sake!"

She was sheet-white, quaking with shock, and the right side of her face was bright red. I had slapped her, I realised, and felt tears escaping my stinging eyes.

"There was nothing that you could have done," the doctor continued, his arm around Meg. "We knew that it was likely that the aneurysm would happen again. She did not suffer, Meg, it was peaceful. She just slipped off to sleep. There wasn't any pain."

"I'm—I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Meg, I—I didn't mean to hurt you, I lost my head for a moment." I reached out a trembling hand for Meg. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

She let me embrace her, still shaking like a kitten in the snow. I did not know what else to say.

"I need a handkerchief," Gotreich said gently. "I need to tie it around Madame Giry's head to stop her jaw from dropping. It will be a few hours before _rigor mortis_ sets in, then we can remove it."

"Of course," Meg whispered. "I'll find you one."

"_Herr_ Danton, please will you help me move Madame Giry into her bedroom?"

"Of course," I echoed, unwilling to obey, unable to refuse.

There were rituals surrounding death, and I was wholly unfamiliar with them. A strange state to find myself in given my intimate relationship with murder. But a murderer seldom has to deal with the aftermath of his crime. My father had died before I was born, and when my estranged mother shuffled off this mortal coil, I had been informed of the fact by a letter from her solicitor. My letter of reply had contained instructions to deal with all the necessary procedures of death, such as the preparation of her corpse and her funeral, in my absence.

I did not know any of the practical and superstitious rites that began in the early hours of that morning; the clock in the drawing room being set to the time of Antoinette's death and stopped, and the mirrors being covered.

Dr Gotreich and I moved Antoinette to her bed and laid her there, her eyes closed, arms by her sides, the handkerchief wrapped under her jaw and around her head to keep her mouth closed until _rigor mortis_ froze it in place. We placed a fresh sheet over her and stood side by side, looking at the shape in respectful silence.

"There is little that can practically be done tonight," Gotreich told me, his voice soft. "In the morning Miss Giry will need to attend to the body, while you fetch the undertaker."

"I do not know of any undertakers in the area," I confessed. Why would I know of any? I had not anticipated needing their services.

"I do," he replied. "Treadwell's, in Brooklyn. They will embalm Madame Giry here, if that was her wish, and while the viewing takes place they will assist with the funeral arrangements. It is traditional, _Herr_ Danton, for the funeral service to also be done in the home, before the deceased is moved to a cemetery."

"We never made any plans," I realised. "Nothing beyond her last Will and Testament, and that did not specify what should happen to her remains. She would have told me."

"It is not unusual not to have a plan. None of us want to think about the day we will die."

"But we should have!" I cried. "We knew this was going to happen, sooner or later!"

"_Herr_ Danton, we cannot discuss this now. It is not right. I can give you a sedative if you wish, so that you can sleep."

"Sleep?" The word had lost all meaning.

"You will need your rest," the doctor said. "There is a lot to do in the morning."

I nodded, weariness suddenly sweeping over me like a wave submerging a ship.

"And for Miss Giry," I added. "I won't let her argue about it. She needs rest as much as I."

We returned to the drawing room to find Meg sitting in an armchair opposite the sofa, staring at it as if her mother's corpse was still there. Dr Gotreich silently passed her, leaving to fetch his required medications. My violin and bow were in Meg's lap, and she was clutching the arms of the chair so hard that her knuckles had turned white. Her eyes were wide and dry in her pale face, the red slap mark on her cheek already beginning to bruise.

"Forgive me," my fingers hovered over the evidence of my violence upon her skin.

"You didn't know what you were doing," her voice was almost a monotone. "Shock, I suppose. Is this shock? Is that why I can't feel?"

"Yes, Meg. I need you to listen to me now. We have done all that can be done for tonight, and we both need to rest; it will be a long day tomorrow. Dr Gotreich is going to give us both some medication to help us sleep."

"I don't want any—"

"Stop. Speaking."

Gotreich returned with two small phials of liquid and handed one to me, holding out the other to Meg.

"I _don't_—"

"Drink it or I'll pour it down your throat."

I was too tired to be gentle, struggling too hard with my own grief, and I think she could tell that for herself. She uncorked the little bottle and downed its contents, and I followed suit, wincing at the flavour.

"Thank you, doctor." She said, giving him back the bottle. "For everything you've done this evening. I—I don't know how we're going to cope without…"

"Miss Giry, please let me assure you that you are not alone. I think tonight showed how valued your mother is—was—within our community. The sad news will be delivered in the morning, and I think you will find many people who will want to assist you both in any way we can." His eyes went from her face to mine. "You have my deepest condolences. You and _Herr_ Danton."

"Do you want me to escort you to your apartment?" I asked, but Meg shook her head.

"We should open the windows," Gotreich said quietly. "It is a good thing we are well into autumn. There is the option for an iced casket at Treadwell's, if you think it will be necessary."

"I do not know what will be necessary," I confessed. "When young Mr Adair died, the other carpenters did everything. All I did was give them money."

"There are many here who have helped our friends and loved ones lie in state, _Herr_ Danton. Every man has to do this at some point in his life. There is help here for you as well as for Miss Meg." He patted me on the shoulder. "Goodnight, _mein freund_."

I struggled back up the stairs to the top floor, my own private domain, my limbs heavy with fatigue. As I undressed and placed my mask on the mannequin head that served as its home, I kept seeing flashes of Meg's face. White, dry-eyed, the red mark upon her cheek, the bruising. What had possessed me to strike a grieving child? _Her_ child? Had Antoinette known, she would be furious; she had once threatened to 'end me' if I laid a hand on her daughter again.

The sedative was clouding my thoughts. I must know the processes and procedures in the event of a death, here in the West. And yet, for all I tried, the only rituals I could remember were from the East, from my time in Persia. The corpse had been a man in his early thirties, not one of my victims. He had died as a result of a small wound that had become infected, filling his blood with poison. His body had been washed, wrapped in white cloths and buried under the murmur of Arabic prayers within twenty-four hours of his passing. Things were so different on this side of the world. I knew that my friend would still be in her apartment for several days more.

_My friend._

Such a small honorific, but one that I so rarely bestowed. By the time the drug had smothered me in sleep, I was sobbing like a widower into my pillow.

I do not remember the words I used at the Imaginarium the next morning to give my employees the news that Madame Giry had died. I do remember the surge of sound, a sort of mixed gasp and cry of disbelief and shock. Many of them had been at Madame Giry's birthday party the evening before, had seen and spoken to her. The amusement park itself would be closing for three days, out of respect for Antoinette, and to give myself and Meg time to make further business decisions. While Meg was in mourning, her role as leading lady would be taken by her understudy Helen Roylott, but what of my responsibilities? Over the past year I had spent more time at the Imaginarium than at my home, not having a day away from it apart from Christmas Day itself. Dr Gotreich, who had become my stage manager during the staffing reshuffle in Spring, could take on some of those duties, but what of the others? I needed time to think, so that I had time to mourn.

As questions flooded at me about what had happened and what could be done to help, I had eyes only for Mrs Johnson, quietly drawing her to one side.

"I need telegrams sent to the investors," I told her. "Would you oblige?"

"Of course, Mr Danton," she reached out and gently squeezed my upper arm. "I am so sorry for your loss."

I nodded, swallowing hard to rid myself of the lump in my throat. What was wrong with me? Or was this what everyone felt? People mourned in different ways, I knew that, I had lost people before. But never like this; never someone who had been so close to me.

By the time I returned from Treadwell's undertakers that afternoon, someone had hung a black wreath on Antoinette's front door, indicating that a death had occurred. I knocked, and Lucy Phelps let me in. Beyond her I could see other women in my employ; the Roylott twins Helen and Julia, and Irene Norbury, all cleaning the apartment for the expected visitation.

"Is Meg still here?"

"She's sitting with her mother."

Meg was sitting by Antoinette's bed, her hands in her lap, wearing the black crepe dress that had been made for her when she had been in mourning for her fiancé, the Irish carpenter Benedict Adair. I had vaguely expected her to be reading, maybe the Bible, but she was just staring into the air. Even though I had already opened the door, I rapped my knuckles against it gently.

"Meg?"

She looked at me.

"Erik. Come in."

I knew that Meg and her companions had spent the morning washing and arranging the body, but was still unprepared. Antoinette was lying on top of the bed, fully dressed in the beautiful black gown of chiffon and beads and lace that had been purchased to celebrate our settlement on Coney Island. She had worn it the night in early January when we had all dined with my investors. Her hands were resting on her abdomen over a bouquet of white roses. Antoinette's hair had been loosed from its usual sever bun, and instead rested in a long braid over one shoulder, the raven tresses sparkling with the occasional streaks of grey and silver. She had not yet achieved the age of fifty, and my mind, for a moment, saw her with those flowers as a grotesque mirror image of a bride.

"You have done well by her," I managed as I closed the door behind me, unsure what to say. Meg acknowledged my words with a nod and gestured me to a chair.

"Thanks to my friends. I wasn't sure what to do, really. But I knew that Mother would want to be in this dress. She loved this dress."

"A fine choice."

"And what of you? The ladies said you went to an undertaker?"

"Treadwell's, in Brooklyn. They will be here at four o'clock to do the embalming."

"Must they? I always found the idea of embalming to be distasteful. Invasive."

"I feel it would be wise."

"What of a coffin? You didn't buy one from them, did you? Not without asking me?"

"No," I laid my hand on hers. "No, my dear, I would not dream of it. I wanted to speak to you on that matter, because Seamus Donnelly approached me as I was leaving the Imaginarium. He said that he and his colleagues would be honoured to create a coffin for Madame Giry."

"Like they did for Benedict?" The ghost of a smile passed over Meg's lips. "Then please tell them I accept."

There was another knock on the door.

"Come in."

Lucy put her head around the door. "Meg, Mr Seymour is here to see you."

"Please send him in."

My investor entered the room, his eyes darting to Antoinette on the bed before they focused deliberately on Meg. He was wearing black gloves and a heavy outdoor coat against the November weather, a dark green silk scarf hanging over each shoulder, and was carrying another bouquet of roses, these being pale pink.

"I got the news via telegram," he said. "I hope I'm not intruding."

"Not at all."

"I'm so sorry, Miss Giry," he approached us almost hesitantly, casting around for somewhere to sit, but finding that we had the only chairs. "I brought flowers for… whatever comfort flowers can bring you."

"Thank you, Mr Seymour," Meg took the bouquet from him. "That was a very kind thought."

Seymour was looking at her in a way that expressed something more than sympathy.

"I haven't known Madame Giry for very long, but I found her to be a wonderful woman. If I can offer you any assistance, please let me know. Anything, really; information, money… anything I can do."

"The undertaker will be here soon," she told him. "After that … I'm not really sure what we do next."

"I can share my experience," he replied. "As you know, my wife died last year. But if you don't mind, I would prefer not to do so in here."

Mr Seymour was a little squeamish, I observed, and then inwardly cursed the thought. My friend was lying dead feet away, and I could still feel smugness about another's perceived weakness. I was a monster.

Meg stood up and led the way out of the bedroom, and after a brief talk with Irene Norbury, motioned for us to follow her upstairs to her own apartment.

"I'll do that," I told her as she headed towards the fireplace to light the kindling that was already in place. By the time I had got the fire properly burning, the gentleman was divested of his outdoor clothing, and he and Meg were sitting on the sofa, leaving the armchair for me.

"Am I right in thinking," Seymour began, "that being French, you would be averse to cremation?"

"On religious grounds," I corrected. "Antoinette was a Catholic. Catholicism forbids cremation."

He nodded, and I wondered what his religious leanings were, if he had any.

"She has a plot back home," Meg had leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, chin resting on clasped hands. "In Paris, I mean. She has a space beside my father, in the St. Louise graveyard."

"Meg," I tried not to grind my teeth. "Treadwell's are a very good undertaker, but I doubt even their embalming techniques are good enough to keep a cadaver in an acceptable condition for the time it would take to return it to France."

Meg flinched, leaning back, and Seymour shot me an angry look.

"A local burial, then," I clarified. "I imagine that it will be a case of finding a church willing to accept Madame Giry and negotiating a price."

"Like you did for Benedict," Meg mumbled.

"Cross a clergyman's palm with silver," I said blunted. "They are not immune to bribery."

"There may be another option," Seymour said slowly.

"Yes?"

"Well… in the State of New York, it is legal to bury someone on private land, with the landowner's permission." He raised his eyebrows at me.

"And I own land on Coney Island," I completed his thought. Meg was looking between us, her brow furrowed.

"You want to bury Mother here?"

"It is a possibility." Seymour said. "If she cannot be buried in her chosen graveyard in Paris, then why not have her interred at the Imaginarium?"

"It's not consecrated ground," she objected.

"It can be made so. The priest that Mr Danton was so keen to bribe could bless the place where you intend to bury your mother."

Meg looked at me, uncertain, troubled even. "Would that be possible?"

"I believe it would," I answered. "If you are agreeable, Meg, we could lay your mother to rest at the Imaginarium."

"Where she lived and worked," Meg said thoughtfully. "We would choose the spot together?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then I think that is a wonderful idea," she smiled weakly and reached out a hand to each of us, squeezing our fingers.

The place Meg and I chose was just metres away from the Imaginarium concert hall's stage door, on an area of ground that I had had a vague notion of making into a bed for wild flowers. The idea had been sparked by an article in the newspaper about so-called butterfly gardens, filled with flora that enticed the attractive creatures. It was going to be a bright surprise for those who wandered around to the back of the admittedly plain building. Most theatres are plain at the back, with all the glamourous architectural details reserved for the customer-facing front.

"Mother would like it here," Meg told me. "In the presence of everything she helped to create." She smiled down at the patchy area of grass which was gradually disappearing under a light layer of snow. "Including me."

I shifted the umbrella in my grasp. "I will not dissuade you if your mind is made up. I would just point out that you will have no way of avoiding this spot."

"I wouldn't avoid it. I want to be able to see her every day, not like with Papa. Or my poor Benedict, who are both now so far away."

I gently squeezed the arm that she had wound through mine, and assured her that her wishes would be fulfilled.

It was Seymour who brought the priest to the Imaginarium the following day. I did not know whether the young Father had been bribed into this task and did not want to know. Seymour and I stood either side of him, as with a ceremony of holy words, holy water and holy oil, the soggy plot was transformed into sacred ground. Yesterday's snow had melted despite the frigid air, and the sun shone sharp and clear from a sky so blue that it almost hurt to look at.

Conditions were the same on the day that we said farewell to my dearest friend. The funeral took place in the same drawing room where Antoinette had been lying for viewing over the last five days, as her friends and colleagues filed slowly in and out, paying their last respects. The coffin was a work of art, a dark mahogany carved with roses, surround the silhouette of a ballerina, poised in an arabesque. The embalmers' work was superb, somehow imbuing the lifeless body with a soft rosy blush. She looked as though she might open her eyes at any moment, as though all it would take would be the right kiss to revive her. There were flowers everywhere, the air full of their sweet, sickly aroma.

After the same priest had spoken about Antoinette's life and legacy, the sombre pallbearers lifted the coffin onto their shoulders and into the hearse, for the short journey to the Imaginarium. The deceased was always taken out of the property feet first, I learned, to prevent them from looking back and deciding to stay, or beckoning someone else to follow them to the grave. Despite my fanciful thoughts that day, I could not give that one credence. Even though – or perhaps _because_ – I had spent some of my life as the Phantom of the Opera, I did not believe in ghosts.

All too soon we had arrived at the Imaginarium's freshly-dug graveside, and the familiar words were driving like needles into my skull: _earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust._

Meg was weeping silently, had been since the funeral began, but she did so openly, not hiding behind a veil or handkerchief. If she could be unashamed of her tears, then so could I. I clasped Meg Giry's hand in mine, and together, we cried.

It was late night by the time the wake was over, and Meg and I sat alone in her apartment, drinking brandy.

"May I ask a selfish question?"

"Of course," I nodded.

"What will happen to me now?"

"I don't understand…"

Meg sipped her brandy, and gazed into the fire.

"There is as much etiquette surrounding death and mourning as there is around everything else, Erik. Especially for women. My mother had died. It would not be considered proper for me to be grieving one minute, and singing and dancing with a dazzling smile on my face the next." She swallowed hard. "Am I dismissed as the Imaginarium's leading lady, Erik?"

I took a thoughtful sip of my own brandy. "Do you wish to be?"

"No!" Her gasp was almost a sob.

"Then I think in this case, we can disregard etiquette. Remember, Meg, that have been watching over you since the day you were born. I know how much of an inspiration Antoinette was to you. She taught you to dance. She moulded you into the greatest ballerina I have ever seen. It would be a disservice to her to give that up." There were more tears sparkling in Meg's eyes. "I expect you to take as much time away from the Imaginarium as you feel is necessary. And when you are ready to return, the leading lady position will be open for you.

It was ten days later when the plaque arrived for Antoinette's grave; charcoal grey with gold lettering.

_Antoinette Isabelle Giry_

_7__th__ November 1852 – 7__th__ November 1900_

_Beloved Mother. Cherished Friend._

'_And now these three things remain: Faith, Hope and Love._

_But the greatest of all of these is Love.'_


End file.
